Expert: James Michael Roan - 4/28/2007

Question
Hi James.
I was wondering on your opinion on my 22 month old son Connor. I know he is behind in his expressive and receptive speech (his receptive is the better of the two).  He has a vocabulary of about 30 words and only uses about 10-15 of them daily. He was evaluated by EI to be at about 14 months of age for his language and speech.
He will point to what he wants at times and will also at times just try to get it himself. He uses his own little babbling/jargon language while looking me in the eye asking me for things of desire. (He babbles ALL day) Connor is very social with adults and with children, and gets VERY excited when visitors come by.  He will play with children (usually older since they will initiate play with him) but usually will not initiate play. Connor is extrememly affectionate and initiates hugs and kisses (on our mouths mind you!) with us and with friends all the time. He is interested in his younger sister (who's almost 5 months old) but at times shows no interest in her at all either.
Connor's eye contact is pretty good, I can't honestly say it's perfect, but he maintains good eye contact for the most part. Lately he's been giving our friends better eye contact than my husband and I though.
He doesn't ALWAYS repsond to his name though and this is an area of concern for us. Especially when he's involved in one of his toys, its like we're not even there. His hearing has been tested and was found to be normal.
He plays with his toys appropriately and really doesn't have any "obsessive or repetative" play or movements. He does line up his toys in the bath tub on ocassion(but doesn't have any specific order to them). He pretends to feed his baby doll and will "talk" on his phone. He even will answer the phone at times and bring it to me. He will bring us books to read and show us some toys, but doesn't call our names to "share" his fun with us.  He plays peek-a-boo and loves to play chase, and will initiate the peek-a-boo although he covers his cheeks and says "boo boo" as his way of doing it.
One other thing, he can point out about 6 body parts perfectly. But here's another area of concern...he doesn't always get momma and dadda correct. (if asked to point us out in pictures, he's 99.9% right) but sometimes he'll call my husband momma when hugging him. At times he can mislabel objects (ex:he'll sign cup and say his word for cup "bup" but he really means something to eat). We're not quite sure on why he mislabels things at times.
Overall, he's a fast learner visually,a happy, sweet,loving and affectionate little boy. He does have trouble following more complex demands, so we still keep things simple.
Does it sounds like there's a problem? We're very worried.
Thanks,
Renee
ps-I appologize for my spelling and letter being "all over the place", but with two under two, it's a little hairy.  

Answer
Hi Renee;

Thank you for all the excellent information. Please keep in mind I do not diagnose over the Internet. If your son is on the autism spectrum, it would be the very high functioning end. Based on your description he certainly does not have classic autism for a number of reasons and he is too young to rule out or in high functioning autism. I can say he does not fit to autistic profile. His receptive language is higher than expressive and he has good social interest. I would look for a language-rich preschool program that has small group adult-facilitated play groups. The only one I know of specifically is in Dublin, Ireland.

It really sounds like an expressive language delay. Is he receiving language services through EI?

Kind regards,
James